Invaders from the Eighth Dimension
by Michael Khale
Summary: In which Fistbeard Beardfist learns that his actions always have consequences, and that sometimes those consequences come with madness and a helping of tentacles.
1. Introduction

**Introduction**

Giamoco ducked a stream of acid as he sprang forward and wrestled to the ground something that greatly resembled a flying stomach. A protruding eyestalk on the top turned to glare at him angrily; the eye started glowing blood red as it charged up a ray of scorching energy. Before the eyeball could discharge the energy, Giamoco deftly stabbed it with one of the wands that he was holding, puncturing the organ and causing the creature to shudder violently. He ripped the wand out and tumbled behind the cover of an upturned table as the creature exploded, showering the room with acid.

"Sir!" An acolyte in torn robes greeted him from behind the table. "We're losing this battle. The rift still grows, and the creatures are legion."

"Then start the evacuation!" Giamoco ordered, shoving the man out of the room. "Get the initiates and relics out first. Tell all ordained members to stand their ground until it's done."

An unnerving howl echoed through the room, signaling that more monsters were closing in on him. Giamoco pulled out a wand of Divine Power activated it, hoping that the power of his god would see him through this next encounter. Hextors blessing flowed through him and incited a rage the likes of which he had never felt before, pushing him on despite his wounds.

It had been several weeks since the guild mage and her patsies had ruined the Fountain of Unlikely Chance. Ever since strange occurrences and disturbing dreams had been plaguing the monastery's inhabitants. No one had wanted to obey Torquemada's orders to reopen the fountain chamber, but they could only stall him for so long. The cleric was determined to have access to the magic of the spring once again, and the power of his office was not to be denied.

Giamoco personally supervised the excavation, hoping that the magical disaster had worn itself out and that it would be safe again, but not even in his most terrifying nightmares could he have imagined what would emerge from the sealed room. The workers were snatched up instantly into the darkness by a terrifying mass of tentacles, and all manner of grotesque creatures poured out to ravage the land. Not even the wards Hextor's priests soon placed around the monastery could stop them. the best the priests had managed to do was to delay the enemy's progress.

It bought time, but it would only serve to prolong the inevitable unless they could banish the monsters and seal the rift. Unfortunately, from what Giamoco could tell, they did not have that capability. He could hear the more enemies approaching; their maddening gibbering gave them away long before their foul stench did.

"By the inexorable will of Hextor, you will all die!" He yelled as he leaped towards the most recent group of enemies pouring out from the bowels of the monastery.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Fistbeard picked up an pencil and vigorously crossed out several pages on the notebook in front of him. His autobiography was going poorly, and not even copious amounts of alcohol managed to help wit this. The creative center of his brain was not responding well tonight, and the writing process had ground to a halt several hours ago. Still, there was no point in letting good drow wine go to waste and he reached for the bottle to finish it off, hoping to get at least one thing done before falling asleep.

The bottle was not there. He groped around the desk looking for the wine, but it seemed to have disappeared. Curious. And what was that smell? Fistbeard sniffed and noticed that there was definitely something odd about the odor which was permeating his cave. It was not nauseating, or even really unpleasant. It was just that it, despite all his attempts to put a finger on exactly what he did not like about it, smelled _wrong_.

He turned his head to his right and noticed a blob of misshapen flesh and tentacles had stolen his wine and was happily guzzling it down through what he could only assume was its mouth. Fistbeard got up out of his chair and addressed the creature directly.

"Alright, you'd better put that down nice and easy."

The creature took the bottle out of its mouth, held it behind its body, and made a rude sound at Fistbeard.

"You, my betentacled friend, have just gotten between the wrong dwarf and his alcohol."

* * *

Fistbeard's cave was located halfway up a mountain and hung over a drop of five hundred feet down into the forested valley below. Fistbeard once had the misfortune of falling down the entire length of the mountainside and onto a very thorny shrub on the first day he moved into the cave, due to his inexperience with the surface world and heights in general. That evening, he repeated the journey along with the intruder as he bull rushed the creature out of his home for refusing to give up the wine.

It flapped its vestigial wings, but they were of no use; Fistbeard was too heavy for the monster. They landed the creature on the same shrub that he fell in on his first day, with the aberration on the bottom to absorb most of the damage from the fall. Fistbeard bounced off of the creature's elastic body relatively unharmed from the fall and landed a dozen feet away. Despite the drop, the monster, looked none the worse for the wear and got back on its feet, snapping and growling at him with an orifice full of very sharp teeth. They charged at each other at the same time, and ended up in a tangle of limbs and tentacles. Fistbeard struggled to keep the heavy thing off of him, barely managing to keep the creature from biting his face off as he repeatedly pummeled the thing with his fists. It secreted a vile smelling ooze which caused Fistbeard to lose his grip and nearly managed to take off his beard before the mighty hew of an ax severed the top half of the creature and sent it flying into the bushes.

Fistbeard looked up to see the familiar form of Thain Wulfgar looking down on him, ax raised high.

"If I'd knowed it was you, I think I would have waited a bit," the orc chieftan sneered disdainfully as he lowered the weapon. Fistbeard pushed the rest of the body off of himself and stood up to face the orc.

"Well, sorry to have bothered you. I hope you enjoy your evening stroll," Fistbeard replied, wiping the ooze on his pants.

"What are you, daft? Don't you see what we're dealing with?" Wulfgar pointed at the sky above them. Fistbeard looked up and gasped. Instead of the moon, the night sky was occupied by the hideous form of a ball of pale white flesh, with snapping mouth, squirming eyestalks, and lashing tentacles protruding from every inch of its body. Clouds of small creatures were continually shedding from its form, like fleas leaving for new hosts. An unearthly screech filled the air and caused both warriors to cover their ears in pain as a brilliant explosion filled the night sky; when Fistbeard looked up again, he saw tiny humanoid figures flying around the ball of flesh attacking it with magic.

"It's been up for ages; where've you been?" Wulfgar asked, as the nearest cloud of aberrations used their tiny wings to glide in their general direction. "Mrifk, always thought you were a bit thick."

"I knew I should have put off the writing until later," Fistbeard groaned. "Alright, want to do this thing together and get back to hating each other's guts as usual?"

Wulfgar snorted something that was not quite a rejection and leapt through the air to intercept the monsters as they landed. Fistbeard chose to remain on the ground and started bashing those that had made it past Wulfgar. Their bodies may have been soft, but they were still eminently trippable and soon found themselves squirming about helplessly on their backs as Fistbeard knocked them off their feet and burst their stomachs with a sharp strike to their center of mass. As the battle on the ground raged on, the air was punctuated by more eerie screeches and blasts of magic until the ball of flesh gave one final scream that paralyzed everything in the area, including the aberrations Fistbeard and Wulfgar were fighting, for what seemed like minutes before exploding. A wave of ichor filled the night sky and fell like rain onto the forest. Fistbeard ducked under a rocky outcropping and pulled Wulfgar down on top of him as the foul smelling liquid washed over them. Body parts soon followed, with mouths, tentacles, and organs soon littering the area.

"You're dead," Wulfgar snarled at the relatively dry dwarf as he realized that he had just been used as a makeshift umbrella. Before he could carry out his threat, one of the fallen mouths near them, large enough to hold a giant, came to life and rose up on its stalk. Wulfgar quickly pulled Fistbeard in front of him as the mouth widened to engulf them both, revealing several rows of unpleasantly sharp teeth in the process. Fistbeard raised his fists and lashed out at the mouth, connecting a powerful uppercut with its bottom jaw. The body part promptly exploded in a burst of magic, showering Fistbeard with ooze this time. As he wiped away the slime from his eyes, he saw humanoid forms surrounding them.

"Evening, Fistbeard," Reina Dawntracker greeted. "Care to join me for a bath?"


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"It's not coming out of my beard," Fistbeard groaned, wringing his beard into the spring. "I think I'm losing facial hair."

"You think that's a problem? My skin's turning white," Wulfgar panicked. "I look like a... a... something very white!"

"Keep scrubbing," Reina advised, handing them some more soap. "It's basic."

"Basically what?" Wulfgar asked, taking the soap gingerly, regarding the bathing aid with no small amount of suspicion.

"Basic is the opposite of acidic, if I remember my metal ore processing class correctly," Fistbeard explained, applying the soap to his gray skin. "It doesn't burn like an acid, but it will eat away at you over time."

Upon hearing this, Wulfgar frantically applied the soap to his body for what was probably the first time in his life in a desperate attempt to cleanse himself and maintain his manly shade of dark green. Fistbeard waded away from him to avoid the dirty water he was splashing about and ended up in the other end of the spring with the elves.

"So... what was that think in the air?" Fistbeard asked Reina, as he found a secure rock to cling onto. "Something tells me we have a situation on our hands."

"You have no idea," Reina replied. "You remember last month, when you went to the Ethosas monastery?"

"Don't tell me, those creatures we saw entering the fountain chamber..."

"Were from the Far Realm," Reina finished. "Yeah, apparently the Hextorites were unable to contain them. They broke out yesterday and have been expanding at a rapid pace. That thing we fought earlier was something of an advanced scout. If you'd come to our biweekly meetings, you'd know that."

Fistbeard sunk a few inches into the water as he contemplated the magnitude of the problem. Reina reached over and gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder.

"At least nobody's blaming you for it. Can you imagine having to fix sort of mess?"

* * *

Fortunately, Fistbeard's magical items were unharmed by the ichor, which meant that all he needed after his bath was a new set of clothes. Unfortunately, he did not own a change of clothing, and was forced to rely on the elves for charity. His new garments smelled of flowers, fresh spring breezes, and other elfy things that he found moderately objectionable. Still, it was probably better than accepting something from Wulfgar, and enough sweat could probably work the elf out of the clothing anyways.

While the other Fists of the Forest were out finishing off the remaining aberrations, Reina had singled Fistbeard out for a special debriefing. He sat in a circle of upright stones deep in the forest, in front of two elven mages of the Circle of Magic, who Reina introduced as Etar and Tiber before she left to help cleanse the forest.

"Ah, the illustrious master Beardfist," Etar greeted, bowing slightly at the waist. "A name known even to us Grey Elves. I hope we're not keeping you from anything?"

"Well, my clan elders want me to write up my life story for the archives, but that's been going nowhere lately, so... no, not really. What do you want me for?" Fistbeard replied, leaning back against one of the stones and eying the mages cautiously. There was a sneaking suspicion at the back of his mind that the reason he was not mopping up extra-dimensional gunk was because fate had a much more unpleasant job in store for him.

"We wish to talk of the Far Realm," Tiber answered, drawing out a thick book. "As it is the topic of the day."

"I'm all ears, but I only know a bit about the other planes, and most of that I picked up from a warlock's angry lecture on the nature of things."

"Our purpose is less to inform you of the particulars of the Far Realm - such matters being beyond your comprehension, after all - but rather, to seek your assistance in solving our current problem." Etar explained it with what dwarves called the 'typical snotty elvish attitude', and Fistbeard did not appreciate the condescension.

"You see," said Tiber, "Us mortal races are on the defensive right now. We can probably win this war, as creatures from the Far Realm lose power when they come into the Prime Material, but we will need an offensive action to seal the planar rift. However, since a direct assault is dangerous, the Circle of Magic has proposed an alternative solution. We believe that it is possible to seal the rift from the other side by using a 'back door' entrance to sneak in behind the enemy lines."

"You want to go into the Far Realm?" Fistbeard shot straight up alarmed at the idea. He was no coward, but he could definitely identify a blindingly suicidal idea when he saw one. From what he had heard of the Far Realm, any plans involving entering the place definitely fell into that category. "That's your safer alternative?"

"Obviously not; we are neither mad nor fools," Etar replied, not even bothering to conceal his condescension this time. "The entities are crossing over from the Far Realm through a transition dimension. It is like an interplanar bridge which allows them to become accustomed to the differing laws of reality that govern our existance. We seek to blow up that bridge, to extend the metaphor."

"And what do you need me for?" Fistbeard scratched his beard, perplexed. "I'm no mage. Never cast a spell in my life, really."

Etar chuckled at the statement; evidently he found the idea of someone who did not use magic amusing.

"All too true, but your expertise in the field of 'beating things up and in the face' has proved useful on many occasions, has it not? Powerful mages as we are, we would still appreciate some solid support, and dwarves are nothing if not solid."

Fistbeard got the vague feeling that he had been slighted somehow, but decided to ignore it.

"Well, since I am indirectly responsible for this, I suppose I should make an effort to fix the problem. When do we Plane Shift?" Fistbeard asked.

"Nothing so simple, I'm afraid." Etar shook his head. "We do not know the proper 'coordinates' for a Plane Shift. We are hoping to use older, abandoned portals that lead to the same place."

Tiber smiled as he opened his book to show a map of the Southern Wastes.

"Fancy a trip down south, master Beardfist?"


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

It was far below freezing outside the tent, but Krag's clothes were soaked with sweat. He rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment as he stood in front of the tribal elders. They had been raking him over the coals for the past two hours, demanding to know exactly what his role was in the current disaster. As they were quick to remind him ever ten minutes, all Firstborn were sworn to guard _against_ another planar incursion, not trigger the largest invasion from the Far Realm since the times of Vaul.

On the bright side, all the marriage offers that his parents received had been rapidly withdrawn, giving him some breathing room when it came to the issue of finding a woman.

"Pay attention," Ultuz, the senior shaman, snapped as he noticed Krag's thoughts wandering. "We're not doing this for our health, you know."

"Sorry," Krag apologized, bowing his head.

"Apologies are worthless," Daruk, the high priest of Vaul, shouted at him. "What do you plan on doing about this disaster, you idiot?"

"I do not know, elder, but if anyone else has a plan, I will do my best to help," Krag offered. "I'm up for pretty much anything, really."

"You speak honestly, if not wisely," Ultuz said. "Because it turns out someone does have a idea on how to eliminate the problem. One that will involve great peril and eternal torment at the hands of mad beings if you fail. Will you accept, son of Kor, and let your actions speak for you, or do you plan on shaming us again?"

The choice between fixing his mistake and restoring his family's honor or letting someone else do it was really not a choice at all.

"I accept," Krag decided. "And I swear by the third scion of Vaul I will not stop until this war is over."

"Very well, then I believe this council will be grant your request." He checked with the elders to his left and right to see if any disagreed. There were no objections. Daruk clapped his hands and yelled out to the guards. "Show the outsiders in!"

The tent flap opened, letting in a chilling gust of wind that carried with it the very familiar scent of freshly brewed mountain whiskey.

"Krag!" Fistbeard greeted, striding into the tent ahead of two vaguely annoyed elves. "Ready to bust some heads again?"

* * *

The four of them sat Krag's tent after he had been released from the tribe elders. It was relatively clean as far as orcish tents went, but had evidently seen better days if the numerous patches on the sides were any indication. Fistbeard knelt on a yak wool sitting mat as he helped Krag pack his belongings, while the two elves shivered in the middle of the tent.

"Very spartan abodes you have here, master Krag," Tiber noted, as he teeth clattered against each other. He stamped his feet on the floor in an attempt to restore feeling to his appendages. "I don't suppose you have any way of keeping the cold out?"

"If you can't get used to it, there's always rotgut," Krag offered, pulling out a dirty bottle of hard orcish liquor from a chest by his sleeping mat.

"I fear I must decline," Tiber refused politely. "We should not become intoxicated when we are about to leave in short order. Especially since I shall be teleporting us."

"Suit yourself," Krag shrugged as he tossed the rotgut into his backpack. "Surprised you didn't bring anything for the cold."

"In our, ahem, haste to resolve the current situation, we must have overlooked some of the more minor details," Tiber stammered. Krag noticed that he seemed a little embarrassment and decided to change the subject.

"So, what's your plan, eh? I heard something about going far down into the ice."

"Where else?" Etar asked rhetorically, as if talking to a very small, very slow child. "Those portals have been inactive for so long that they have probably been forgotten."

"Six thousand years may be a long time, but the stories I hear... they don't experience time the way we do, do they?" Fistbeard pointed out. "They might still remember."

"True, that is a possibility - the alien minds of the far realm are beyond the comprehension of mortals," Etar admitted. "However, the Bloodfist shamans tell me that the portals show no sign of life even now, which implies that the Far Realm has its attention focused on the far north."

Fistbeard and Krag exchanged glances. Somehow, Etar's reassurances were not comforting.

"Eh, what you think is best," Krag said, tossing a few coils of rope in his haversack. "I'm good to go."

"So soon?" Fistbeard asked, surprised at how little Krag had to pack. "Not going to say goodbye us to your folks or anything?"

"Dad's off with a warband going in to fight the marauders. Mom went to pray at the Temple of Vaul. It's just me here," Krag replied. "Just as well, they're a little cross with me at the moment. Now are we going to get this thing done or not?"

"Indeed we shall." Etar opened the tent flap and stepped outside first. "I think I'll look forward to the fresh air and snow."

* * *

"I hate weather."

Fistbeard was up to his neck in snow while Krag and the elves stood above him on the snow bank. He struggled to free himself for several minutes before Krag reached down and pulled him up by the collar of his tunic.

"You'll get used to it," he reassured over the howling wind as Fistbeard brushed himself off.

"Never thought I'd say this, but I think I miss having Iago around." Fistbeard stepped forward and promptly fell into another soft spot in the snow. "At least he could get rid of obstacles!"

"Fistbeard, you have to work with the snow," Krag advised, as he extracted Fistbeard again. "Use your gut."

"I think his gut is what's getting him into this problem," Tiber joked, poking Fistbeard in the stomach. Fistbeard rolled his eyes at the insinuation and got back in line.

"Why are we walking, anyways? Shouldn't the teleportation have landed us in the chamber?" Fistbeard asked as he made sure to follow in Tiber's footsteps.

Tiber shrugged. "I apologies, but the wards placed on this portal are still very much active. This was the best I could do."

"Alright, I guess this wouldn't have been fun if it was too easy," Fistbeard grumbled. "What should I know about trekking around in this place that might not be obvious?"

"Uh, yeah, there's a few things." Krag listed them, counting off on his fingers for each one. "Ok, if you see an old man with frostbite and sharp teeth who is always just out of reach, beckoning you to come closer and help him, don't follow him, just leave the area. Don't dig deep into the snow, don't go to the frozen mountains to the south, and if you do have to go around there, don't listen too closely to the wind. Sometimes you'll see glowing balls of light, just leave those alone. Also, if you see piles of treasure in the snow, but it's a trap. The monsters are mostly wyverns, yeti, purple worms, that sort of thing. Those are pretty easy to take care of, just hit them hard enough so that they realize you're not going to make a good meal and they'll go find something else."

"Interesting..." Fistbeard quickly stepped to the side as the snow beneath his left foot collapsed and managed to stay above ground this time. "So there's a lot of stuff we have to watch out for that's not monster related?"

"That comes as no surprise to those who study history," Etar interjected. "Surely even you must know of the first invasion by the Far Realm?"

The implication that he was ignorant made Fistbeard bristle. "I told you, I knew some of the stories. When the world was first made, the Far Realm desired to twist it into their image. Six thousand years after creation, they invaded and would have destroyed us all or worse, but they got their arses handed back to them and their planar rifts were sealed."

"That is a simple way of putting it," Tiber agreed, "Though no less correct in the essentials. However, despite all the effort to eradicate the aberrations, many survived and were imprisoned in the far corners of the world, where they would hopefully never awaken to trouble us again. Others were never fully captures and escaped death; in the Underdark and the vastness of the Southern Wastes some survive to this day."

"Really?" Fistbeard asked. "I always heard we killed every last one. Why haven't they been causing trouble?"

"I would imagine that they fare poorly in the Underdark, and here?" Tiber gestured at the white expanse all around them. "They are trapped. Frozen in ice, buried in snow, forced into hibernation due to the cold, or trapped in hospitable pockets and unable to survive out here. They do not bother us because they cannot escape."

"Well, we run into them sometimes," Krag clarified, "But not often. They do try to get people to free them, though. Mainly it's through dreams, calling out to the weak. When I was a kid, I had to help keep a bunch of cultists away from the mountains, because they wanted to wake something up that was sleeping in it."

"But... we're going to somewhere safe, right?" Fistbeard asked nervously.

"I think I would have told you if we were," Etar snapped. "Pull yourself together, it's just a glacier with a cave in it. We go in, open a one way portal, test to see if we can get in, and then call in a small army of mages to go through and disjoin the plane. Why do you insist on acting like it is something dangerous?"

"If it's so safe," Fistbeard retorted pointedly, "Then why do you need us?"


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The bottom of the glacial crevasse was as cold as Fistbeard, but it did provide protection from the wind and the ice served as a reasonable insulator from the weather outside. It was closer to being underground than the surface, and Fistbeard for one found himself relieved to be on solid footing once again. He would have lead the way through the hazardous caves of ice so that he could identify dangerous areas, but Etar did not have the patience for Fistbeard's cautious methods. The elf mage cast a flying spell on himself and flew off ahead of the party in search of the portal. After an hour's worth of effort and two collapsed tunnels, they ended up in a large chamber filled with twisted ice forms and a strange pulsating energy field that caused Fistbeard's hair to stand on end.

"Where's the portal?" He asked, taking in the ambiance. There was a definite lack of a portal in the room. Etar waved his hand dismissively as he addressed Fistbeard's question.

"While many portals are visible, this one was sealed and must be reactivated before you can see it with your eyes - though a simple detect magic spell will reveal the presence of powerful magic woven into this chamber."

"Well, feel free to get on it." Fistbeard decided the best way to shut the elf up was to have him do his work while he talked to Krag. "Call me when you need me."

"I don't know how you can stand them," Krag muttered as they lounged about at the chamber entrance. "The trip must have been hell."

"We teleported. It took six seconds. Second longest six seconds of my life." Fistbeard removed a pipe from his belt and a small pouch of tobacco. "I will never know how Iago managed to stand elves long enough to become an elf-friend. When they offered to make me one, I balked and talked them into making me a Fist of the Forest instead."

"What did you ever do to make them try to honor you in the first place?" Krag asked curiously. The dwarf has not not told him much of his own backstory when they had their first adventure together.

"For beating up dragon, freeing a druid, and drive off a horde of orcs within the span of my first month of active surface duty. To be fair, it wasn't by myself; I had a lot of help, but elves can't really honor other elves that way, so that just left me to receive the special honors."

"Heh, kind of like how we honor people by showing them our special fighting styles..." Krag trailed off. "Um, well we would if we had more people coming around and helping. But no one wants to come, so that never happens. And even when they do come, it's mostly magic users."

Fistbeard and Krag both looked over at the elves. They had drawn a ritual circle in the center of the room with red chalk and were busy lighting incense for some arcane ritual or the other, and judging from their pacing it would not be finished any time soon. The sharp smell of juniper filled the air, causing Fistbeard to put a hand over his nose and wonder how much longer the process would take. It was bad enough that he and Krag were basically cannon fodder, but they could at try to cut down on the waiting time. Desperate for a distraction from the boredom, Fistbeard retrieved a keg of his whiskey from his haversack and shared the contents with Krag.

"You're bringing the keg with you?" Krag asked curiously as he pulled out a wooden mug from his backpack.

"I once made the terrible mistake of leaving a barrel of mead with the quartermaster when the Deepwardens conduced a deep recon mission, and we were forced to survive for two agonizing weeks on nothing but food and water." Fistbeard explained. "I've never done it again."

Tiber lit the last stick of incense and pulled out a flask of oil. Fistbeard's hopes that the wait was over were quickly dashed as Etar began doing a rather ridiculous dance while Tiber drew a complicated symbol with the oil inside the circle of chalk. The process was complex and it took the better part of an hour for Tiber to finish the intricate design, whereupon he tossed the remaining oil up into the air, gave a brief incantation, and stuck a match. A wave of heat roll past Fistbeard's face as Tiber lit the oil symbol on fire, and the flames sprang up high into the air to form an imposing gateway of fire. The gateway was barred with strips of paper, but they were soon ignited by the fire and their ashes scattered around the room.

"We have unlocked the gate," Etar shouted over the roar of the fire. "Now would be the time to go through!"

Before Fistbeard or Krag could respond to Etar's request, the fire died. The gateway was still there, however, but it took the form of black obsidian. The dark stone cracked as a wave of energy pulsed through the gateway, and a thin black tendril shot out stabbing Etar through the stomach, pinning him to the walls. Behind the gateway, they could see Tiber panicking as he tried to re-seal the portal.

"Unholy shit!" Krag shouted, as he reached for his gluisarme.

"You think?" Fistbeard asked, sprinting towards Etar while Krag picked up his weapon. Fistbeard moved next to Etar and grabbed onto the tentacle to hold it in place while Krag charged forward in order to sunder the appendage. Krag's guisarme cracked the tentacle like a stone, and the shards scattered over the floor.

Fistbeard quickly caught Etar as he was freed from the wall and laid him on the ground. A steady stream of blood was pouring out from the stomach wound now that the tentacle had fragmented and created an empty space in Etar's abdomen. Fistbeard reached for his healer's kit in order to treat the wound, but found himself pushed to the side by Krag just as another tentacle shot through the portal intent on killing him. This time, however, instead of going straight forward, the tentacle turned once it has missed Fistbeard in order to coil itself around him before pulling him off his feet and towards the portal. Krag gave a mighty yell as Fistbeard disappeared through the gateway, and for better or worse ran through after him, leaving Tiber and Etar alone caves of ice.

* * *

It seemed like he was falling through endless space. Krag could see stars and planets fly past him as he fell. Sometimes, the planets would look inhabitable, like his own. Sometimes, they would look strange and foreboding. Sometimes, it seemed as if he was not looking at planets at all, and he shuddered to think of what they might really be. He plummeted faster and faster; the stars and planets rushed by so that he saw nothing more than colored streaks on a black background. He fell, and fell, and fell, growing steadily dizzier as the everything spun around him, forming a vortex of color.

Krag felt someone shaking him and calling his name, but there was only darkness so black that not even his darkvision could penetrate it. Then he realized that it was only dark because he had not opened his eyes. He opened them to see Fistbeard kneeling in front of him, trying to wake him up.

"I'm awake, I'm awake," Krag grunted as he observed the room. It was completely devoid of light, and made of the same black obsidian as the gate. There was an iron door behind Fistbeard about 20 feet away, but aside from that there were no noticeable features. Krag pressed the palms of his hands against his temples and stood up. "And it feels like I just went through a pub crawl, vision quest, and mushroom festival at the same time."

"Why in the Nine Hells did you come in after me, you idiot?" Fistbeard shouted at him. "This is the last place you want to be! Do you know where we are? Did you not pay attention to what everyone's been saying?"

"Go grow a pair," Krag snapped, irritated that his friend was suddenly acting so strangely. "Don't be such a pansy."

Fistbeard looked like he might strike Krag for the insinuation, but quickly checked himself and calmed down somewhat.

"I'm not a coward, Krag," Fistbeard explained. "But you have to realize, normally we do not need to be afraid of death - cautious, yes, but not afraid - because we will join our gods. You will go to Vaul, and I to the Great Hall of Moradin, where I shall join in the eternal feast and drink with my fellow dwarf warriors for ever. In this place, however, there is a good chance that our souls will be devoured by strange creatures and our souls tormented for all time, and maybe driven completely barking made in the process. It will destroy us utterly, and that kinda creeps me out."

"Yeah, sounds bad," Krag acknowledged. "You feeling better now?"

"A little," Fistbeard replied. "Ok, just gotta think straight. Let's go about things logically. We're in the transition plane, so we should be able to find an exit and get back home. And we're alive, which is a huge help."

"Being alive is good," Krag agreed, glad to see that Fistbeard was no longer panicking. "Want to try the door over there?"

"Might as well get it over with." Fistbeard walked up to the door and reached for the door knob. His hand slid past it and landed on the door itself. Confused, Fistbeard tried again and succeeded on grabbing it the second time.

"Must be a little disoriented from the trip," Fistbeard joked. "Ready to get out of here?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," Krag answered. "Unless I ever have a small army of magic users at my command, or become a god of war. Then I might be more ready."


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

The walls were making Fistbeard nervous; something about them did not seem quite right, though for all his training he could not put a finger on it. Perhaps it was the fact that, although he was in an environment typically associated with the underground, his dwarf senses that detected depth and direction were not functioning the way they did back on the Material Plane. It did feel rather disorienting, like suddenly losing one's hearing or sense of balance.

He and Krag had been traveling in the pitch black corridors for nearly an hour now, pressed up against the left side of the corridor, and they had seen nothing but stone walls and the occasional junction, usually one which split into two different directions. Fistbeard was tempted to mark their progress through the dungeon with chalk, but that would have likely given away their presence, and if there was one thing that he did not want to do this close to the Far Realm, it would have been that.

Instead, Krag had been keeping a map of their progress, and from what he had drawn, the dungeon was vast, but with no apparent contents. It was just corridor after corridor, with no purpose to any of them. As they came to yet another T section, Fistbeard sighed and leaned against the right side of the passage.

"What do you reckon?" He asked Krag. "Think we stand a chance at getting anywhere in this labyrinth?"

"Don't know," Krag answered, checking the map. "But it's been repeating itself for a while now. Five T junctions, then a cross junction. Either this dungeon is really long and regular, or we're going in circles."

"But we've been taking a different turn each time," Fistbeard protested, snatching the map from Krag's hands. "I don't see how it could take us back in a circle."

He sank down and squatted against the right wall in frustration, and then shot up again.

"When did we start hanging on the _right _side?"

Krag blinked. "I... don't know. Could have sworn..."

There was silence for the next few minutes as they tried to figure out what was going on in the dungeon. Fistbeard did not like his conclusion.

"Come on," He motioned to Krag, "We're going to keep moving. There's got to be something in this damn place other than rock walls and one room. You go a ways down the right, and I'll go down the left. Let's tie rope around our waists and split up a little."

"Might work," Krag agreed, pulling out his rope and tossing one end to Fistbeard. "Don't go out of sight."

Fistbeard fastened the rope around himself and set off down the left side, hoping that he would not run into Krag coming at him from the other end. As the rope between the two stretched tighter, he noticed that the rock he was walking on seemed different. There was a thin layer of soot covering everything, and the floor was badly melted in several places. As he looked around, he noticed that the damage extended to the walls and the ceiling as well. Finally, something was different about the labyrinth.

Fistbeard tugged twice on the rope to signal Krag, who came from behind him much to Fistbeard's relief.

"Looks like acid." Krag observed thoughtfully. "Perhaps an acid spitting monster had a fight with something else?"

"Must have been a fire breather then, judging by the scorch marks," Fistbeard added, rubbing the soot between his fingers. "No bodies though. Whoever died must have gotten eaten. I guess we know a bit more about what to expect in this forsaken place."

"Let's go take a look further up, then. Where there's creatures, there may be an exit."

Fistbeard tentatively agreed. It was more likely than finding an exit in the middle of nothing, anyways. As they left, he looked back at the battle damage and sincerely hoped that the acid monster was the one that had lost.

They followed the occasional melted stone or scorch mark until they came to a simple looking wooden door. Fistbeard and Krag glanced uneasily at each other as they contemplated what was on the other side; either there were two monsters who continued fighting intermittently up the corridor or the marks in the passage came from one creature who was capable of producing both acid and flame. Standing around, however, was not going to get them anywhere, so Fistbeard and Krag took up positions on opposite sides of the door as Fistbeard turned the knob and pushed it open.

The room was a black space without light or gravity. Fistbeard gently tossed an apple into the void and found that it did not drop down but simply floated in place. He threw a rope to Krag and stepped out into the darkness to see if it would be safe for them as well. He floated alongside the apple in utter darkness.

"Is there anything in there?" Krag asked from the corridor.

"Nothing - absolutely nothing," Fistbeard answered, twisting around to face Krag. "There isn't even a door frame, it's just... an opening in nothing."

"Then what's that?" Krag pointed to something behind him, and Fistbeard turned around to see a black figure flying at him with a bright energy weapon in its hands. He quickly pulled back on the rope so that his attacker missed, and twisted around to generate enough momentum for a solid kick to its center of mass. The figure let out a very familiar string of curses as Fistbeard's foot made contact, causing him to stop the attack.

"Iago?" Fistbeard and Krag shouted at the same time.

"I'm sorry, Fistbeard," Iago apologized emotionlessly, dismissing his eldritch glaive. "I wasn't using my darkvision. I see things in the darkness sometimes..."

Iago giggled as he gestured vaguely at the expanse behind him. Fistbeard grabbed onto him and took a close look. It was definitely Iago, right down to his red eyes, but they seemed incredibly dull and distant now, not burning with passion and fury like he remembered.

"How long have you been in here?" Fistbeard asked, shaking Iago to try and draw his attention to the question.

"Days, weeks..." Iago answered vaguely. "It's been a very long time, I've been exploring all over, alone; no one else went in after it. Ended up here after my first week or two."

"After what?" Fistbeard glanced at Krag, worried. Iago was clearly not in his right mind at the moment.

"We went into the monastery and fought our way to the portal, then something stole the orb, and I chased it. We needed the orb." Iago gathered his hellfire into the form of a white sphere and presented it to Fistbeard.

"See, that's what it looked like, it can sever planar connections. Probably good for bowling too."

"Alright, and it can help us halt the invasion?"

"Oh yes, very powerful, round magic, that it is," Iago smiled. "Zahrah helped make it. Her and Ozymandias, Yahtzee, Rachel, and... the guy in the blue robe and the yellow hat. He wore a white porcelain mask."

"I'm sure it is... I'm sure they did..." Fistbeard agreed. "Do you think the orb is still here?"

"Probably." Iago was still smiling. It was starting to creep Fistbeard out; Iago was one of those few people whose face was much better suited for frowning than smiling due to long hours of practice and a choleric disposition.

"How about we go and try to find it, then?" Fistbeard suggested. "Maybe we can still stop them by recovering the orb."

"No, we can't," Iago's eyes darted side to side nervously as he licked his lips. "I've added it all up, checked my math, but it's all wrong... the angles aren't adding up, it doesn't make sense. I don't want to see it, it's not right..."

"Laduguer's blackened hearth," Fistbeard muttered, as Iago babbled on. "I knew this place was bad news."


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

It took a great deal of convincing and a very heavy blindfold, but Fistbeard eventually managed to get Iago out of the void and into the main corridor. He handed the warlock to Krag, and mouthed instructions to hold onto Iago in order to guide him and prevent him from using any of his magic if it came to that - the man was clearly not in his right state of mind, and even if he had managed to avoid attacking Fistbeard, that was no guarantee that he would continue to exercise such restraint in the future.

"Where are you going?" Iago asked curiously, as Krag dragged him along. "Did they tell you the layout as well?"

"I... no. We've been alone." Fistbeard shook his head, wondering what Iago was referring to. "I think we've been here for a few hours, and it's is damn confusing. I figure, though, if we map out the dungeon enough, we'll be able start a systematic search of the place and eventually find the exit portal back home."

"Ah, you and your Euclidean geometry. How quaint." Iago giggled, as if he found the situation amusing. Krag made a motion to place his hand over Iago's mouth to stifle the sound, but Fistbeard caught his eye and shook his head; Iago might have something important to say.

"Do you mean that this place isn't mappable? That the dungeon is warped, so you aren't always going straight even when you're walking in a line?"

"And it shifts too," Iago added. "Don't forget, the angles, they're always changing."

Fistbeard glanced around uneasily. The dungeon did have a disorienting effect on him, and he was not exactly sure anymore if it was just from his depth sense being neutralized.

"Perhaps you could use your Night Hag's heartstone to take us through the walls and bypass the corridors?" Fistbeard suggested. "There has to be something behind the walls."

Iago panicked and his head darted back and forth, as if looking for something despite his blindfold.

"Bad idea," he whispered hoarsely. "You don't want to do that... what's in the walls is best left in the walls. There's things... they exist on many planes, and you see more of them when you leave..."

Iago broke off into a spate of incoherent mumblings as Fistbeard took Krag aside.

"This is not going well," Fistbeard said. "And I'm aware of the understatement."

"We're surrounded by horrible things, Iago's gone crazy, and no one can help us. Yeah, understatement," Krag groaned. "And I think we're going in circles."  
"You can't navigate by sight, or by maps, you have to feel it." Iago was evidently with them again; he stretched out his hands and stumbled forwards as he spoke. "Listen to the whispers in the darkness, let the dungeon talk to you, and you'll be surprised what you can learn. It's how I found the room. I can take you other places as well, but you won't like me after I do it..."

Iago collapsed against the wall in a fit of tremors and started hyperventillating as Fistbeard and Krag exchanged glances. It was probably very dangerous to confront the beings in the plane, but the prospect of being trapped for eternity was becoming less appealing by the minute. Besides, they did owe it to the world to try and fix their mistake at any rate, so there was really no question that they would have to track down the orb, disjoin the plane, and hopefully escape with their sanity intact.

"Nothing's going to happen, Iago. We're going to go in, kick ass, and save the day like the big damn heroes we are." Fistbeard reassured the warlock and helped him back on his feet. "Lead the way."

* * *

Iago followed no discernible pattern as far as they could tell, picking passages seemingly at random. Sometimes, he would take them halfway down one passage before quickly doubling back and taking them on a different route, talking schizophrenically to himself in an incomprehensible language as he did so. As they passed through one identical, featureless corridor after another, Fistbeard began to wonder if Iago actually knew what he was doing or if he had actually gone mad and was taking them on a wild goose chase pursuing figments of his imagination.

Iago abruptly signaled them to stop with a raised fist and Fistbeard paused, wondering what he had seen. Without warning, the entire fabric of reality seemed to twist around them in a vortex of colors and strange lights. When it was over, Fistbeard found himself lying on the floor, staring up at a ceiling that looked the same as before, yet somehow different at the same time. He looked to his right and saw Krag sprawled on the floor as well, struggling to reorient himself to their new surroundings. Iago was standing above them both, seemingly unaffected by what had just happened.

"Good, good," Iago congratulated, "You're starting to get a feel for this place. Don't worry, the first time's always the worst. It gets... easier the more it happens. You get used to the shifts."

"Has that been happening all this time?" Fistbeard picked himself off the floor and extended a hand to Krag, helping him back on his feet.

"Every hour," Iago shrugged. "Might be a fundamental feature. Might be a result of portal activation."

"Does that mean we're any closer to the thing?"

Iago shrugged again. "We're always close to it. It's just a question of finding the way in. The dungeon's centered around the portal."

Iago looked like he was about to continue explaining the situation, but he paused as if listening for something only he could hear. Suddenly, he snapped his head to the left and began looking around vigorously, even though he could not have seen anything due to the blindfold. Before Fistbeard could ask him what he was doing, Iago made a beeline down the corridor at full speed, forcing Fistbeard and Krag to run after him. When they finally caught up several turns later, he was standing in front of an obelisk placed in the dead center of the hallway. It was taller and thinner than a man, and made of the same featureless black stone as the rest of the dungeon.

"Can't you sense it?" Iago muttered, running his hands over the object. "Such power..."

"What is it? A trap?" Krag asked as he approached it cautiously.

"No," Iago answered slowly. "An _opening_."

As Iago spoke, the obelisk glowed with strange symbols painful to behold. The side facing them opened revealing a single narrow beam of light in the middle of a vast expanse, surrounded by impenetrable darkness on all sides. There was a jerk and Fistbeard found himself sliding towards it. He dug his heels into the ground, but it was as if the floor lost all friction and the gravity of the corridor had changed, drawing them into the obelisk. Ahead of him, Krag was clawing at the floor trying to establish a hold, while Iago cheerfully flew into the opening.

"Could have warned me!" Fistbeard yelled at him, jumping off of the floor and falling in after the warlock.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Unlike the rest of the transition plane, this place was solid white, and so bright that it hurt his eyes. Fistbeard could barely make out where the floor met the walls of the incredibly sterile room he was in. He looked around, but find neither an exit nor Iago, and after waiting for a few minutes, decided that Krag had either stayed in the dungeon or had wound up somewhere else.

He walked up to a wall and pressed his hands against it, hoping to learn what it was made of. Fistbeard frowned as he examined it and failed to identify the material. It did not feel like stone, brick, wood, metal, or any other building material he was familiar with. If he had to give it a name, he'd call it white; it was simply there, taking up space, feeling neither cold nor warm to the touch, and looking like the complete opposite of black nothingness. He moved on to section after section, but each was composed of the same unyielding mass that, as far as he could tell, had no weakness nor secret entrances in it.

Fistbeard drew back his hand in frustration, formed a fist, and rammed it into the wall as hard as he could. There was a sharp crack as his arm jolted from the shock of impact, but there was no discernible effect on the barrier. Fistbeard drew a flask of whiskey from his tunic and drank some of the liquor to soothe the pain in his knuckles as he contemplated what to do. Breaking through was likely impossible, and from what Iago said earlier, probably not the wisest thing to do in any case. The room had no exits that he could discern; there were no exits out, secret doors in the walls, or even a trap door in the floor.

It was beginning to feel like a trap. Who knew what it was that Iago had activated? He should never have let Iago go unsupervised in his condition; it was foolish and reckless of him. Fistbeard knelt down next to one of the walls and pressed his forehead against the whiteness.

"Moradin, I don't know if you can hear me in a wretched place like this," Fistbeard prayed, "But it hasn't been going well, and the world could really use a bit of luck considering that the Far Realm's breaking through, but I guess you knew that... Well, of course you would, you're a god. Hell, you probably know about me and what kind of trouble I'm in too, so I don't know why I'm praying. Never saw the point in it, to be honest, since you know what we'd ask anyways, but I guess what I'm saying is that I could use any bit of help, and I hope you can spare some time from protecting dwarvenkind, smiting the drow, and drinking with the greatest heroes of our people to lend a hand. Amen."

Fistbeard remained motionless for several minutes after he finished, waiting for anything to happen. The room remained as sterile as ever. Fistbeard gave up and turned around to sit against the wall. This was not going well, and he hoped that Krag and Iago were not trapped like he was.

Seeing nothing else to do, Fistbeard fished out his pipe and lit it. If he was going to be trapped for all of eternity, he might as well take some time to enjoy himself. The tobacco was a fine mix, and he found it rather soothing, especially after the whiskey. Speaking of whiskey, he might as well have some more. Fistbeared retrieved a keg out of his haversack and drank several mouthfuls. While the taste was still on his tongue, he puffed on the pipe and savored the flavor of the tobacco as it mixed with the alcohol, and inhaled the fragrant scent of the smoke as it rose into the air.

Fistbeard targeted the cloud of smoke as it hovered right above him and blew a smoke ring into the center of it, causing the cloud to burst. He watched the ring as it rose higher into the air and then disappeared. Fistbeard blinked. That was definitely not normal; it did not dissipate, it simply vanished. He inhaled a mouthful of smoke and blew another ring straight up, and watched it closely. As it went up, it drifted towards the wall and disappeared as well, as if it had floated out of the room.

Fistbeard stood up and threw his pipe into the air; it traveled over the wall and landed somewhere on the other side. Of course it did; he had forgotten to check the ceiling and assumed that the room had one. Fistbeard whispered his thanks to Moradin and pulled a collapse able ladder out of his haversack which he placed against the wall. Fifteen feet above the ground, he felt an edge and saw his pipe on the top of the wall.

He stepped onto the top and picked up the pipe before looking around. This place was not just one room, it was another maze. He could see other rooms as he stood on the top of the wall, as well as the corridors linking them, all made out of the same white mass and under a blank sky. Fistbeard strained his eyes as he looked around, but he could not find Iago, Krag, or any other form of life in his vicinity.

You have to feel it. Iago's words echoed in Fistbeard's head. He had initially thought that the warlock was crazy for opening his mind to this place, but it seemed to work and Fistbeard really did not have much of a choice if he wanted to find the others. He closed his eyes and attempted to enter into a meditative trance for the first time since he had finished monastic training.

He cleared his thoughts and in his mind's eye, he saw the same white nothingness that he has been surrounded by when he first set foot into this new labyrinth. The image distorted somewhat, and spun around; he caught glimpses of other places and creatures that remained blessedly blurred and distorted. The images passed by rapidly, increasing at a dizzying speed, until they suddenly stopped and settled on the familiar figure of Krag's dead body lying in a pool of his own blood. An emaciated humanoid in disgusting, resin like armor stood over Krag's corpse and split open his abdomen with a scalpel thin dagger. The creature reached in with its long, tendril like fingers and pulled out foot after foot of Krag's intestine, raised it to his face and gave off a horrifying screech.

Fistbeard's eyes shot open. He heard that screech; it was ringing in his ears, and it came from his left. Fistbeard readied himself for combat and ran along the top of the wall towards the source of that disturbing cry, hoping that he would arrive before the creature could cause any further harm to Krag.

Ten feet later, he found himself falling off of the wall as he mistook empty white space for a solid surface.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

As Fistbeard fell down, he noticed a series of dots hundreds of feet below that were rapidly increasing in size. They seemed to be humanoid and sounded like they were engaged in battle; a ring of dots were flying the two dots in the middle and attacking them with spells and arrows. Right after he observed that, he collided with one of the flying humanoids and ended up taking it down with him as he collided with the floor.

It was the same type of creature that he had seen disemboweling Krag, and despite having buffered Fistbeard from taking the full force of his fall, it attempted to cast a spell in order to escape. Fistbeard caught its hand and slammed his elbow into its helmet with as much force as he could muster from his prone position, causing the crown to slit open with a brittle cracking sound and ooze a tar like blood that smelt of filth and corruption.

Another resin clad creature screeched in anger as it saw what Fistbeard had done and gathered a bead of magical fire in its hand, only to suddenly drop out of the air and land face first on the ground. Fistbeard heard a familiar battle cry and looked over his shoulder to see Krag run up to the downed spellcaster and spear him through the chest.

"You're alive!" Fistbeard blurted out, despite the fight going on above him and the pain of impacting against the ground at terminal velocity.

"Why not?" Krag asked, pulling his guisarme out of the corpse.

"Less talking," Iago shouted down to them as he was hit by several dispelling spells and fell to the floor to join them. "Dammit, why can't you two FLY?"

Fistbeard looked up at the four fliers still hovering above them. He might not be able to fly, but that did not mean that he was useless. Fistbeard pushed himself off of the ground and ran straight up the wall for thirty feet before leaping from it and repeating his act of catching one of the creatures in mid flight. Fistbeard landed across its back and grappled with the creature in the air. As the others hesitated about how to get Fistbeard off of their friend, Iago quickly dispelled another flying spell and a second creature fell to the ground for Krag to take care of.

Fitbeard's victim flew about wildly, banging into walls and its allies in an attempt to shake him off. After ducking three scorching rays and one fireball, Fistbeard decided that it was time to move on and the next time they flew into a wall, he twisted around and used his momentum to prevent the enemy from flying away while he headbutted it in the back of the head, causing its forehead to smash against the wall. Fistbeard kicked off as the body fell to the ground and delivered a powerful flying kick to another enemy's spine, causing it to veer off and crash into the ground some distance from the rest of the group.

It was one of the archers, and evidently tougher than its spellcasting companions. Instead of showing signs of injury, it promptly picked itself up and launched an arrow in Fistbeard's direction. He ducked the projectile, only to have it land firmly in Krag's body. It pierced his ling and brought Krag to his knees; Fistbeard almost rushed over to help the barbarian before noticing Iago diving in with a healing wand drawn. Fistbeard charged at the archer, but it was ready for melee by now and was wielding a wickedly curved scimitar due to Fistbeard's indecision. It stepped forward to intercept Fistbeard's attack and slashed him viciously across the chest; Fistbeard winced in pain as his clothes grew wet with blood. To add insult to injury, the archer flicked its wrist at it made its final cut and sent the sword into Fistbeard's beard, shaving off several inches of facial hair.

Fistbeard promptly responded to the insult by rushing forward and wrapping his arms around the archer, preventing him from using his sword effectively as Fistbeard pressed his opponent against the wall and choked it with his forearm. The archer clawed at him desperately as he cut off its air supply, and Fistbeard pressed harder knowing it was nearly finished. There was a popping sound and he saw out of the corner of his eye that the resin armor over the archer's arm had grown long, deadly spikes, which the archer promptly rammed into Fistbeard's side. The spikes tore through Fistbeard's flesh and embedded themselves deep in his lungs, forcing him to loosen his grip.

The archer broke the spines off in him instead of wasting time pulling them out and quickly seized Fistbeard by the throat. Fistbeard grabbed onto its fingers, but he could not pry the jointless appendages off of his neck. It slammed him against the wall and bore down on him with all its strength, intent squeezing out his life. As Fistbeard grew dizzy from the oxygen deprivation and his punctured lungs, he looked up at his assailant and noticed that the armor had joints around the neck. He wrenched one of the spikes out of his rib cage and ran it through the neck joint.

He was rewarded with a guttural cry from his enemy as it reeled back, trying to extract the spike from its throat. It wrapped its unnatural fingers around the spike and pulled it out, only to inflict further damage on itself. Fistbeard watched the creature collapse into a heap as a torrent of vile blood poured out of its neck.

Idiot, he laughed, breathing in deeply. Serves you right for cutting my beard. Foreign objects can cause as much damage coming out as they do going in. The blood was pooling on the floor. The spike was holding it in like a stopper in a bottle. Fistbeard breathed heavily as the world spun around him. He had enough air now; why was he still dizzy? His arm brushed up against the spikes still embedded in him and he realized that he had done exactly what his enemy did.

Unable to stand any longer, Fistbeard collapsed against the wall and feebly grasped for his flask. His hands wrapped around the steel container and he brought it out of his tunic only to see a huge gash in the side. Not all of the wetness he had felt was blood.

The haversack. He had to get to the haversack; it had his keg. Fistbeard ordered his arms to take off his backpack, but they felt like dead weight and would not respond. It was getting harder to think as well, and the world started spinning around him. The last thing he remembered before his vision dimmed was Krag and Iago rushing towards him.

Too late, he sighed. Too late.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"I don't think he's doing well," Iago commented somewhat lucidly as he landed next to Fistbeard.

"Wand him! Now!" Krag ordered as he saw the broken flask in Fistbeard's hand, giving Iago a few good shakes to get the point across. Iago's condition had improved somewhat after he had started killing the inhabitants of the white maze, but it still took some effort to get through to him.

"I'm sorry, but I had to use it on you." Iago held up the wand in his hand for Krag to see. "You needed it."

Krag tossed him aside and tore Fistbeard's backpack off of him. He undid all the pockets and flipped the haversack upside down, causing all the contents to spill out. Krag gave the container a few shakes for good measure before rummaging through the pile of equipment before him, but it soon became obvious that Fistbeard's keg of whiskey was not there.

"Asmodeus' FLAMING BOWELS!" Krag kicked an empty treasure chest aside in frustration, "Where's the alcohol?"

""I'm sorry, I don't drink alcohol," Iago responded, turning his pockets inside out to emphasize the point. "Friends don't let friends cast while intoxicated."

"You and the damn elves," Krag snapped as he opened a white satchel and reached for a roll of bandages inside of it. He closed his hands around them and then froze; what _had_ he done with the rotgut after Tiber refused it? Krag dropped the bandages and quickly slid his backpack off so that he could reach into the main compartment and drew out his dirty bottle of orcish liquor. Krag bit into the cork, pulled it out with his teeth, and poured the contents straight into Fistbeard's mouth. The alcohol disappeared with a faint gurgling sound and Fistbeard slowly opened his eyes.

"Thank the gods for alcohol," he wheezed. Fistbeard placed a hand over the spikes sticking out of his side to confirm their presence. Although he had been brought back from death's door, they had yet to be removed. "Urgh, pity it doesn't solve all of life's little problems."

"You ok thought?" Krag asked, handing Fistbeard the bottle in case he needed more.

"Fine, just need to extract them properly." Fistbeard pointed to the the white satchel Krag had gotten the bandages from. "Medical kit. Forceps."

"Always glad to be of service." Iago responded promptly and handed him the kit. "Whatever happened to your alcohol?"

"Must have left it up there," Fistbeard gestured upwards. "Left in a hurry when I felt Krag was in trouble. Damn shame."

"I'll get it for you then," Iago offered, flying off without glancing back or asking for directions. Fistbeard stared as the warlock disappeared into the whiteness.

"Iago's a little... different now, isn't he?" Fistbeard asked as he retrieved a pair of forceps. Seems a bit more stable, but still not quite right in the head."

"He's been getting better," Krag answered. "I think being around someone was good for him. Also, we've been fighting for the past half hour, and killing them seemed to help."

"Sure makes me feel better. Easier to fight an enemy if they have a face and breakable necks. It's rather cathartic, isn't it?" Fistbeard rolled over on his good side and handed Krag the forceps. "Alright, now you're going to have to help me out a little. Follow my instructions exactly, I don't want to cause any more damage getting these things out."

* * *

"Twist a little to the right and you'll be clear." Fistbeard watched in a mirror as Krag gently eased the last spike out with the forceps and dropped it on the floor next to the others. It had taken half an hour, but Krag had finally manage to extract all the spikes properly without causing any unnecessary damage.

"Glad that's over with," Fistbeard commented gruffly as he took a swig of rotgut. "Ah, that hits the spot."

"My tribe would give a lot to learn how to heal from alcohol." Krag sighed in relief, glad that the operation was over. Surgery was really not his thing; in fact, most things that did not have to do with hitting something really hard were not really his thing.

"I think my clan would like to learn your fighting styles." Fistbeard replied, raising the bottle in toast and took a long drink. "We should set up an exchange program."

"I'll drink to that," Krag laughed. "And it looks like Iago's brought something to drink with."

"I am never going to make the mistake of leaving that thing out of my sight ever again," Fistbeard declared solemnly as he saw Iago descending with the keg of whiskey in his arms. "Iago, I can honestly say that I've never been so glad to see you."

"The pleasure is mine," Iago replied politely, as he handed the keg to Fistbeard. "Ah, I see you're up and about again. It's good that someone is in a condition to fight, because I am worn out."

"Me too, come to think of it," Krag added, glancing down at the half healed wounds covering his body. "Only got a small bit of healing before the wand ran out of juice."

"They will recharge next day cycle," Iago reassured. "It is the only way I have been able to keep track of time in this place."

"And you said you had been here for weeks?" Fistbeard took advantage of the fact that Iago was now in a better state to answer his questions to clear up a few questions.

"I lost count after seven, I think. My memory is a bit hazy."

"How's that possible?" Fistbeard quickly ran through the dates in his head. "The incursion didn't start then, and even when we left the elves told me that an attack was only in the planning stages."

"The elves told me that you died," Iago recalled. "Two of them came back from the wastes a few days before we attacked and said that you and Krag had been dragged away by something. And yet you spent less time here than me. Fascinating. Nonlinear time flow."

"Can't imagine spending that much time here," Krag interjected, trying to keep up with a conversation that was threatening to escape him. "Place gives me the creeps. Especially those things we keep fighting."

"Kaorti," Iago spat. "Filthy schemers. They're probably behind all of this."

"You know what they are?" Fistbeard glanced over at the corpses.

"Idiot wizards that tried to get into the Far Realm about a thousand years ago. They were changed, and now want to turn every plane into a version of the Far Realm. Probably saw a window of opportunity when we messed up the Fountain and jumped at the chance to flood with world with abominations."

"Like the first great invasion," Krag observed. "Only I guess it wasn't the Kaorti back then, but they had the same idea. Very bad for us."

"If that's true, then we shouldn't be talking," Fistbeard declared forcefully, stowing his keg away again. "Come on, we've got to move out before things get worse!"

"You might be able to," Iago noted, "But not us. We will have to rest for a day to be combat ready again."

"What about the invasion?" Krag asked, torn between the two problems. Inaction was bad, but going into a fight badly injured was not likely to help matters either. He looked at Fistbeard and saw that he was also unsure of how to proceed. Several long moments followed as each of them debated what to do.

"Can't do a thing about it if we're not in fighting shape." Fistbeard broke the silence and sat down on the ground. "We'll rest for now. This place is safe, right?"

"I think we have just about killed off everything that could pose a threat," Iago said. "Shall I take first watch?"

"I'll do it. You'd better get some real sleep and, er, get better," Fistbeard suggested as diplomatically as possible, placing a hand on Iago's shoulder for comfort.

"What are you talking about? I'm fine," Iago replied, twitching noticeably as Fistbeard touched him.

"And an elf's my uncle." Fistbeard dragged Iago down and forced him to lie on the ground. "You're getting some sleep before you go bonkers on us again."


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Fistbeard sat against the wall and drummed his keg of whiskey thoughtfully. It was somewhat reassuring that, in the midst of all the strangeness around him, mundane things still occurred. Iago was on his side snoring loud enough to soundly beat out Krag in the noise department, which forced Fistbeard to reach over and pushed the warlock on his back to stop the sound before anything could hear it.

When he resumed his position next to his keg, he noticed that the aroma of whiskey was spreading in the air. The cork had been pulled out and the keg was open. That was strange, Fistbeard thought to himself. He certainly had not been drinking recently; he had fully healed himself an hour ago. He corked the keg and resumed his original train of thought.

His Deepwarden training had covered many situations, but none of his instructors had been able to anticipate a conflict on strange planes that had become twisted by the Far Realm. The default assumption was, as far as he could remember, that the unfortunate dwarf wold be driven mad by contact with the Far Realm and consequently be unable to actually use his training. Fistbeard made a mental note to write to Commander Goldcutter if he survived and suggest a slight change in the curriculum; perhaps a workshop of some sort would be appropriate.

There was a small popping noise from his right, and Fistbeard turned his head around to confront it. The space they were in was as empty as ever, but the aroma of whiskey filled the air again. This was becoming rather familiar. He leaned back against the wall and close his eyes just enough to give the impression of having fallen asleep in order to see what would happen next.

A proboscis emerged from the wall and reached over to the open keg, slowly draining it of whiskey. Fistbeard grabbed it and reached into the wall to find an hidden compartment in which a small aberration had hidden itself. He closed his fist around a foot and pulled it out, hurling it to the far side of the room.

It looked remarkably like the one which had stolen his wine. Fistbeard suspected that, like dead outsiders, it had respawned in its native plane after being killed.

"Come back for round two, eh?" He challenged, cracking his knuckles. The creature screeched in response and charged at him. Fistbeard jumped out of the way and landed on the keg as the aberration pounced on the spot he used to occupy. He grabbed one of the monster's tentacles and swung it around like a ball on a tether, twisting his body around so that the monster's trajectory would arc into the wall. It impacted with a squishy sound, bounced off the wall, and landed on its back.

"Elbow of JUSTICE!" Fistbeard jumped off of the keg and came down elbow first at his enemy. The creature rolled its round body to the side to avoid the blow and Fistbeard found his elbow smashing painfully into the ground.

"What's that?" Iago yelled as the impact woke him up. He caught a glimpse of the aberration snarling at Fistbeard and immediately shot up into the air. Iago shot a blast of hellfire at it, but the creature dodged and charged at Fistbeard again. Krag rolled over, grabbed it as one would a ball and brought it up to his face.

"YOU WILL STAY STILL!" Krag ordered loudly, baring his teeth as he intimidated the monster into submission. It froze up immediately and Krag dropped it on the floor, where it proceeded to behave itself very well under the glowering gaze of the half-orc.

"Alright," Krag asked, in a much softer voice, "Now what's this is all about?"

"That creature was stealing my brew," Fistbeard accused, pointing at the creature. "And I'm pretty sure he stole my wine before this mess started too. The thing's a menace!"

"To what, ethyl alcohol?" Iago snipped, clearly annoyed at having been woken up. "It's the equivalent of indigenous wildlife, like a monkey or a dog."

Fistbeard gave the creature a long, hard look. He preferred to think of it as a sort of parasite.

"Doesn't look that bad to me," Krag added, prodding it with his foot. "I think I'll call him 'Gur'. Means ugly in orcish."

"Don't give it a name, we're not keeping it," Fistbeard grumbled. "We're stuck here and need to focus on getting out and saving the world, not adopting tiny eldritch abominations."

"We could try to search the place for more Kaorti," Iago suggested. "You can smell them from miles away, it's not hard. Of course, they've probably gone into hiding around the portals, which would reduce our ability to find them unless we knew where they were, and I'm not sure how to navigate in this place. It feels a lot different than the outer labyrinth."

"Hey, if it's like a dog, can it take us to the portal?" Krag wondered, poking at Gur. It snapped at Krag's finger, but made no other aggressive moves. "I mean, it's supposed to go through, right?"

Iago frowned. "I wasn't really being literal, you know. It just fulfills the same general role."

"How'd you know that?" Fistbeard asked. Iago looked uneasy as he tried to answer.

"It just... I get that feeling, you know? Seems like it does. It would make sense..."

"Well, I suppose I should be grateful that you're giving a straight answer for once and not babbling like a glibbering mouther."

Iago looked confused. "As far as I can remember, I've been perfectly coherent this entire time. You and Krag, however, were being rather... thick, like you couldn't understand the simple things I was saying."

The two stared at each other until they were interrupted by Krag pouring Fistbeard's whiskey out into a bowl.

"Now, if you ask for it," Krag explained to the aberration, "You can get it without being hit."

"Oi! Don't... why are you teaching it tricks?" Fistbeard waved his arms about in exasperation as Krag sat the bowl down in front of the thing, which happily drank away Fistbeard's painstakingly brewed whiskey.

"Thought I'd put my animal husbandry skills to use."

"First, it's not animal husbandry. Second, why?"

"It might be able to show us around. We could use a guide." Krag looked over at Iago, who was silently observing the conversation and added, "No offense to Iago, but he's had enough a dose of the crazies lately, and I don't think it'd be good for him to 'open his mind' to this place again."

"Why do you two keep saying that?" Iago asked, throwing his arms up in frustration. "Wee Jas' stonking great rubies, how come everyone goes bonkers when they deal with the Far Realm?"

* * *

"I can't believe we're doing this," Fistbeard muttered as they followed Gur though the labyrinth. After much coaxing from Krag and generous helpings of Fistbeard's whiskey, it had started trotting off through the maze urging them to come with him. It was presumably leading them to the portal, assuming it could understand what Krag had spent an hour asking him to do, and that it was not actually trying to lead them into an ambush so it could have all of Fistbeard's whiskey to himself.

"Best option I could think of," Iago shrugged. "I could fly around looking for things, but this place is pretty big and one direction's as good as any other, really."

"What do you think we'll find?" Fistbeard asked. "The portal, obviously, but what else is here? We got attacked by some sort of creature when opening the portal in the south, and you mentioned something about a tentacle stealing the disjoining orb, so it's like there's something lurking around here, some sort of guardian."

"More than likely," Iago nodded. "All sorts of creatures can come from the Far Realms; who's to say the Kaorti didn't bring something along with them to watch the portals?"

"I was rather hoping you would. Getting out of here'd be a lot easier if there wasn't some sort of monstrosity in the way."

"Maybe." Iago shrugged casually as he flew beside Fistbeard, as if the thought of the guardian did not disturb him, a rather sweeping change from the man he had been... yesterday? Two days ago? A week past? It was hard to keep time straight here. Iago spoke again, interrupting Fistbeard's thoughts.

"It didn't kill either of us in any case, so I'd say we stand a chance."

It was not exactly what Fistbeard had been hoping to hear, but it was better than nothing. He cracked his knuckles and fell into pace behind Krag, following Gur into the bowels of the white labyrinth for better or worse.


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Krag raised his fist. Out of habit, Iago and Fistbeard froze in place and waited until Krag motioned for them to come closer.

"I think Gur found something," he whispered, pointing at the aberration who was snapping his beak at a passage up ahead.

"About time, it's been two hours," Fistbeard grumbled. Enemies were bad, but to him boredom would always be the greatest foe. That and Mothers Against Drunk Dwarves. "How do we handle this?"

"I could go; I can see magic, after all," Iago offered. "I won't set off any traps either, since I fly."

Fistbeard frowned; while that was true, the last time Iago had gone off by himself he landed them in a new labyrinth. He might have become saner, but Fistbeard still had his reservations about letting Iago operate without supervision.

"They'll hear you coming," Fistbeard objected. "As the only one among us who has any stealth training, I think that I should go first. Iago, you can follow at a distance and let me know if I'm about to stumble into a magical trap. Krag, you follow Iago and try to keep the... abomination silent."

Gur snapped at Fistbeard as if he had understood the insult, but seemed inclined to follow the suggestion. Krag nodded and readied his trusty guisarme, while Iago's eyes flashed blue before returning to their natural red state.

Fistbeard mentally went over every bit of sneaking advice he had been taught as a Deepwarden. He crouched low enough for his beard to reach the ground and moved down the corridor in a slow, deliberate manner. Heel to toe. Heel to toe. Keep your center of mass down and gradually transfer the weight of your body from one foot to the next smoothly to avoid heavy footfalls. Keep your back to a wall and stay behind cover to avoid being seen. Blend in with the scenery.

Well, that last one might not have been particularly useful in a dungeon whiter than a snow dragon who had received a rather large tax bill, but the rest of it was spot on.

* * *

Fistbeard slowly stuck a steel mirror around a corner and inspected the room ahead of him. It was larger than the other rooms he had encountered that day, with a solid black obelisk in the middle of the room and had many obsidian gateways embedded in its walls, which stood out in stark contrast to the color of their surroundings. Most were inert, but there were two in which you could see swirling vortexes of color. One of the active portals must logically be the one leading back home and the other to the Far Realm.

There did not seem to be any Kaorti, or aberrations present, so he stowed the mirror away and motioned for the others to join him. Iago drifted over silently, while Krag and Gur made a little too much noise for Fistbeard's comfort.

"Looks clear, far as I can tell," Fistbeard reported. "Don't know about magic though; Iago, you might want to have a look at that."

"I don't see anything magical, aside from the obvious," Iago added, sticking his head around the corner. "Something's up. There should be guards detailed to this room."

"Maybe we killed them?" Krag guessed, thumbing his guisarme. "Sure went through a lot yesterday."

"They might be out looking for us," Fistbeard suggested. "I don't think we would have found this place normally, so they could have decided to try and track us down."

That was as closest thing to a compliment that he would give Gur, not that he liked the creature or anything.

"Or they might be preparing to ambush us when we try to leave, which I think is the most likely scenario." Iago checked the room again, but did not see anything different about it. "Still, it's not like we can stay here, so we might as well give it a shot."

The three adventurers slowly worked their way through the corridor. Fistbeard suggested that they place Gur in front just in case there were traps, but Krag had evidently grown attached to the monster and walked alongside it. Fortunately, there were no dangers awaiting them, something Fistbeard did not like it; from his experience, it was a bad sign when things went too well.

"Alright, so there's nothing here except the portals, which should make my job of figuring out where to go easier," Iago commented, searching the room for any indication of where they might lead.

"Guess they weren't kind enough to put out enter/exit signs?" Krag asked, as he leaned against the pillar. He rubbed up against the black obelisk as if he had a back itch, which resulted in series of small tremors.

"Knock it off," Fistbeard warned. "You'll give us away."

"That, uh, wasn't me..." Krag trailed off and stepped away from the obelisk. "It felt like it came from the pillar."

"Where!" Iago whirled around with his hellfire at the ready and Krag pointed at the obelisk, whose vibrations were growing more intense by the minute. Gur whimpered and slowly backed away from it, which worried Fistbeard. He was afraid that Krag had managed to trigger a trap of some kind, but instead of shooting fire or arrows at them, the obelisk started melting. It's collapsed into a puddle at their feet, out of which an opaque gel form arose. The amorphous blob bubbled and hissed as it towered over them, rising up higher and higher into the air. When it reached its apex, a vaguely head shaped portion formed at the top and a white pearl oozed out of the the middle. It looked down on them from twenty feet above their heads, very much resembling a cyclopean eye.

"Moradin's golden girdle!" Fistbeard uttered in suprise as it swung towards them. "Isn't that your magic ball?"

"Shoggoth on the roof," Iago groaned. "Figures they'd give it to some sort of insanely powerful monster."

He flew up high and blasted at the creature, but the attack had no discernible effect on the gelatinous body aside from burning off a small portion of the surface. The creature responded to the attack by lashing out at Iago by forming a heavy tentacle and lashing out at him with it

"Tentacles! Why did it have to be tentacles?" Iago complained as he plummeted to avoid the attack.

Fistbeard took advantage of Iago's distracting attack to dash forwards with a flying kick to the creature's lower half, which was promptly absorbed by its body. Fistbeard's head crashed to the ground as his foot stuck in the creature and was slowly drawn in.

"A little help here," he yelled, extending his hands towards Krag and Gur. They both grabbed on the best they could and tugged hard, pulling Fistbeard out with a loud plop.

"Something tells me physical attacks aren't going to work," Krag observed, as the creature gave an bone chilling cry despite having no mouths. Two tentacles lashed out at them, barely missing the intended targets. Shortly before impacting against the wall, they turned to stone along with the rest of the creature's body. Fistbeard looked back and saw that they had penetrated into the walls and left holes. That was definitely not a good sign. The creature quickly resumed its amorphous form before either of them could respond and swept the tentacles sideways, aiming to catch the two off their guard.

Fistbeard felt the wind knocked out of him as the tentacles hit him in the stomach and quickly wrapped themselves around him, just like they had in the glacier. Krag swing his guisarme at the tentacles grappling Fistbeard, but the creature responded by shooting another tentacle at Krag, which again turned rock solid just before hitting. Krag was lifted back and pinned against the wall, bleeding out from a hole through his right shoulder but still alive.

"Do that again," Fistbeard shouted over to him. "Get it to turn into stone again!"

"You want me to make fun of it or something?" Krag yelled back, as the tentacle reverted to ooze and withdrew.

"Do it," Iago shouted from above, as he exchanged fire with the creature.

"You suck! You really suck! You're sucktastic!"

"Try harder," Fistbeard suggested as he pried a tentacle off of his throat.

Krag struggled to think of something really insulting, but even if he had there was no guarantee that the enemy would have understood it. Gur, however, had less trouble communicating and promptly snapped out a long series of barks, whistles and chirps that made the other abomination focus on him to the exclusion of other threats.

A tentacle shot forth and impaled Gur through the mouth mid-sentence, splattering its guts over the floor behind it. The monster turned into obsidian once again, which gave Fistbeard the opportunity to shatter his bonds and land on the floor next to Krag.

"Asshole!" Krag snarled, pointing his guisarme at the enemy. "You killed my friend! I'm gonna tear you a new - a new..."

Krag's words became choked off with anger and foam started flowing from his mouth. He took in two deep breaths and let out a resounding war cry that echoed through the room.

"WAAAGH!" He bellowed, charging at the monster in a blind fury.

"Hit it when it turns to stone!" Fistbeard shouted at Krag's retreating form as he struggled to keep pace with the barbarian. The ooze sent several piercing tentacles to intercept them, but Krag batted them away the instant they turned to stone and sent obsidian shards flying through the air in his wake. Before the monster could revert into its natural form, Krag landed a mighty blow to the base and took out a large chunk of the lower body. The effect was instantaneous; the wounded monster turned back into ooze again to mitigate the injury to its form.

Fistbeard knew that he could not attack the monster now, but there was still one part of it that was solid.

"Krag, brace yourself!" Fistbeard landed on Krag's back, put a foot on the half-orc's shoulder, and launched himself up into the air. The maneuver immediately provoked several attacks, but Fistbeard simply let the blows glance off of his chest and grabbed on to one of the tentacles that missed him in order to swing upwards.

"Elbow! Of! Justice!" Fistbeard kicked off of a tentacle below him and soon found himself eye to eye with the creature's magic orb. He twisted around in mid-air to channel his momentum into an elbow smash into the dead center of the orb, and generated enough force to knock the item through the back of the creature's head with a dreadful squelching noise.

The ooze screeched and flailed its tentacles about widely in an attempt to recapture the orb as the precious object fell through the air. Iago flattened his arms at his side attempting to reach it before the ooze did. The monster made a mad lunge at the orb, but Iago dove through the mass of tentacles and crashed into the ground behind Fistbeard with the orb clutched in his arms. All the tentacles that had tried to catch the orb instantly turned their attention to Iago, striking at him like flails.

Iago quickly bit the tip of his left glove and pulled it off with his mouth to expose a heavily scarred hand. He raised it high while incanting words in a dark speech, causing air around him to burst into fire and disintegrate the tentacles that bore down on him.

The creature had, unfortunately, responded instinctively to Iago theft and turned itself to stone during the attack. Fistbeard and Krag immediately took advantage of the weakness to tear into the ooze's body, pulverizing enough of it to unbalance the monster and force it to topple over onto the ground.

The ooze collapsed itself into a shapeless blob on the floor, before rising again just as it had when it first awoke. It distorted itself comically by thinning out and bending back like a spring board, as if it were going to squash them all like flies under a flyswatter.

A sane person would have run. Fistbeard had other ideas and moved next to Krag for assistance.

"Throw me!" Fistbeard pointed at the monster and was promptly flung skywards. Fistbeard drew back his fist as the monster released itself, and met the surface with a piercing punch that tore through the monster's thinned body, leaving a dwarf sized hole in his wake.

A low moan escaped through the hole, which was followed by the monster turning gray as it sped towards Krag and Iago. Before it could land on them, it crumbled into dust and scattered itself into the air.

Fistbeard landed gracefully on the ground and gave the recently defeated foe the traditional dwarven victory salute, which consisted of smacking his chest with a fist, then thrusting it into the air. He concluded with a traditional mocking statement.

"Who's your daddy now?"

"In a few seconds," Iago answered, "You'll be able to ask him."

The dust in the room was slowly collecting where the pillar originally stood, as were the stone fragments Krag had knocked off. Krag promptly rattled off a string of curses that would be unmentionable in polite company.

"Sod it all, I'm activating it." Iago put his hands on the orb and started channeling magical energy into it, which resulted in a steady, high pitched hum filling the room.

"But we don't know which portal to go through!" Fistbeard's eyes darted between the two active portals. Iago was the only one who could possibly tell, but he would never had the time to do so.

"Just pick one!" Iago shouted, as the orb started emitting waves of color. "We don't have much time!"

Fistbeard had no way of deciding, which simplified the decision making process dramatically. He motioned for Krag to follow and ran through the nearest portal.


	13. Epilogue

Epilogue

Zahrah saw Iago chase after the Disjoining Orb and shouted for him to let it go. He either did not hear her warning over the sounds of battle or did not care, because he plunged into the portal without a sign of hesitation. A moment later he emerged along with Fistbeard and Krag in tow.

Iago opened and closed his mouth like a kuo-toa out of water.

"Didn't you... but wasn't I...?" He finally managed to utter, bewildered by the fact that the room was in the same state as it has been when he left. Zahrah caught on quickly.

"Temporal distortion," she diagnosed sympathetically. "Come on, let's get you out of here; we've mopped this place up pretty well."

"Hold it," a cold voice ordered. A mage in bright blue robes and a white porcelain mask moved towards the group. "Not that we aren't rejoicing at your return, but we would like to know if you retrieved the package or not."

Iago was stuck coming up with words, so Fistbeard spoke for him.

"Found it, got it, used it. Shouldn't have any problems from that place again."

"Very well. I look forward to hearing more about this later." The mage regarded him coolly though the mask as he spoke. "Congratulations on your safe return, by the way. The elves were rather worried about the two of you; I rather think they'd be happy to buy you a drink after you get out of decon."

"Won't say no to that," Krag grunted. "Mind you, they'd better not be stingy, cause I could sure use a few stiff ones."

"I'm sure it will be arranged." The mage bowed politely and ended his participation in the conversation to join the rest of his colleagues around the dead portal.

* * *

After the mages had transported everyone out to a nearby human city, Fistbeard had separated from the group, citing unfinished business. A round of drinks at a good bar would have been right up Fistbeard's alley, but he had to decline the offer for the moment and leave Krag in the company of the spellcasters. As much as Fistbeard appreciated the offer of nigh unlimited alcohol, some things did take priority even over drinking.

Fistbeard found himself in the city's dwarf enclave, standing in front of a well built temple tucked neatly between an iron smith and a stonemason. He bowed to the clerics of Moradin at the door and stepped into the cool hall of worship. It was a modest place, due to the small dwarven population, but it had the presence of Moradin nonetheless.

He knelt in front of the altar and pulled out his trusty keg of whiskey. There was a large golden bowl on the altar, and Fistbeard filled it to the brim with his brew before pouring a small amount out for himself. A gray mist surrounded the golden bowl, and the whiskey within it quickly disappeared as Moradin accepted the offering.

Fistbeard raised his ale above his head in a toast to Moradin and downed it in one swift motion.

"Thanks, Soulforger. I owe you one."

As Fistbeard left the temple, he could not shake off the nagging feeling that there was still another task left to do, something that was also very important.

* * *

Fistbeard sat in his cave and slammed his forehead into his desk. He still had his autobiography to write, one that it would have to be longer and much more detailed now that he had come back from another adventure. He sighed at the prospect of the Herculean task in front of him and took another swig of his whiskey.

"Hell, I write better when drunk anyways."


End file.
